During Data Collector Set creation, you can configure the schedule by selecting Open properties for this data collector set at the end of the Create New Data Collector Set Wizard

After a Data Collector Set has been created, you can access the schedule options by right-clicking the Data Collector Set name in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) navigation pane and selecting Properties.

Membership in the local Performance Log Users or Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To schedule the Start condition for a Data Collector Set

In the console pane, right-click the name of the Data Collector Set that you want to schedule and click Properties.

Click the Schedule tab.

Click Add to create a start date, time, or day for data collection. When configuring a new data collector set, ensure that this date is after the current date and time.

If you do not want to collect new data after a certain date, select Expiration date and choose a date from the calendar.

Note

Selecting an expiration date will not stop data collection in progress on that date. It will prevent new instances of data collection from starting after the expiration date. You must use the Stop Condition tab to configure how data collection is stopped.

To schedule the Stop condition for a Data Collector Set

In the console pane, right-click the name of the Data Collector Set that you want to schedule and click Properties.

Click the Stop Condition tab.

To stop collecting data after a period of time, select overall duration and choose the quantity and units. Note that your overall duration must be longer than the interval at which data is sampled in order to see any data in the report. Do not select an overall duration if you want to collect data indefinitely.

Use limits to segment data collection into separate logs by selecting When a limit is reached, restart the data collector set. If both limit types are selected, data collection will stop or restart when the first limit is reached.

Select Duration to configure a time period for data collection to write to a single log file.

Select Maximum Size to restart the Data Collector Set or to stop collecting data when the log file reaches the limit.

Note

If an overall duration is configured, it will override limits.

If you have configured an overall duration, you can select Stop when all data collectors have finished to let all data collectors finish recording the most recent values before the Data Collector Set is stopped.

When finished, click OK.

Important

Larger log files result in longer report generation times. If you review your logs frequently to see recent data, we recommend that you use limits to automatically segment your logs. You can use the relog command to segment long log files or combine multiple short log files.

Additional considerations

To open Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor, click Start, click in the Start Search box, type perfmon, and then press ENTER.

For more information about the relog command, type relog /? and press ENTER at a command prompt.